A Day of Compassion

 

Compassion can be defined as having empathy for the suffering of others ("Compassion-definition and more," 2013).  I believe that being compassionate is a fundamental part of being a human being. Although there are some non-human animals that exhibit signs of compassion in some ways, such as a mother lion comforting a disgruntled cub, or a family dog that licks the face of its owner when they are feeling sad, compassion seems to be one aspect of behavior that sets humans apart. Humans display remarkable examples of compassion at times, such as when an entire nation comes together to raise money or donations to help another nation in need, or when a stranger puts their life in danger to save the life of another person. Without compassion our world would be a much bleaker place to live and our existence would seem less meaningful. For these reasons, I chose to participate in a Day of Compassion for my Participant Observer Blog.

I tend to think of myself as a pretty compassionate person on a day-to-day basis, so I wanted to try to stretch myself for this assignment and express compassion in ways that I normally do not. Therefore, I operationalized being compassionate as tailoring my behaviors in order to be understanding, kindhearted and empathetic for the people around me and their situations. Because I usually am compassionate to people who I spend the most time with, I wanted to focus on people that I do not know, or do not know very well.

I started my day normally, but as I got out of bed I reminded myself to act with compassion in every action throughout my day. The first recipients of compassion were my husband and my two sons. Because my husband usually gets up after me, I tried to be very considerate of waking him while I was getting ready. I tried to be extra quiet, and turn very few lights on. After all, he may be tired and need those few extra minutes of sleep in order to feel refreshed and have a productive day at work. When I woke up my boys I made sure not to keep my voice quiet, as not to startle them awake, and lightly rubbed their backs as I told them it was time to get up. I placed a towel in the bathroom and started the shower for my older son, so it would be warm and ready for him (usually he does this for himself). I went downstairs and prepared my younger son’s cereal and turned on cartoons for him (again he usually does this for himself). I wanted to do some things to help their morning run a little more smoothly, and feel more relaxed and less rushed. They both seemed a little confused as to why I was doing these things, but when they asked what was going on I just smiled and said “Just because I love you.”  Because my behavior was unexpected, I am sure that they were trying to make attributions as to why it occurred.  They might have made an internal attribution (attributing the behavior to some characteristic of my personality, such as “Mom’s crazy”), or they might have made an external attribution (attributing it to the situation, such as “It’s almost Spring Break so Mom is feeling happy and less stressed”). All of these explanations would fall under Attribution Theory, which states that people have a need to understand why events happen, and will look for explanations by using past experience or gathering information (Heider, 1958). Regardless of what my boys thought my reasons were they seemed in a better mood as they got ready for the day.

After the boys were dropped off at school, I made sure that my husband’s lunch was ready for him and started his car so it would be warmed up for when he was ready to leave. He seemed very surprised, but also grateful, for these little acts of service. He thanked me, gave me a hug goodbye and walked out of the house with a big smile on his face.

I was feeling pretty good as I began to plan out the rest of my day. Because it was a day that I do not have class, I would not need to go up to campus so I wouldn’t have much interaction with other people if I stayed home. I decided I would go run some errands; first stop was the grocery store. As I was shopping I paid close attention to the other people around me, which normally I probably wouldn’t do. Usually I am really busy and distracted, and just trying to get in and get out. But on this day I looked at people and smiled and said hello. Many shoppers smiled and said hello back. Surprisingly, others just looked at me kind of oddly, and said nothing. I realized that they may have been engaging in impression formation, which is the process of integrating information about a person’s appearance, behavior, and perceived traits into a coherent schema of that person (Asch, 1946). Perhaps they were even influenced by an event schema, which is an organized framework of knowledge derived from past experience that tells people how others act in certain situations (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). Most of the time strangers do not speak to each other at the grocery store or other public places, so the shoppers may have felt that it was unexpected behavior when I said hello to them. 

While at the store, I also helped an older lady by grabbing a few items off of a shelf that was too high for her to reach. She was very thankful and told me “God bless”. As I walked to my car I noticed a mother of two small children struggling to hold the shopping cart (which was sliding down the hill she was parked on) while she was unloading her groceries. I ran over and held the cart for her, explaining that I have the same problem all the time and they should really put brakes on them! She seemed relieved and thanked my very graciously.

As I drove home I felt very positive about my experience at the store. Even though a few people did not seem to have the reaction that I had hoped for, I still felt that I was able to make a few people’s days better. Although I am normally a compassionate person, I do tend to get enveloped in my own life sometimes and do not think about how one little smile, or helping hand can influence another person’s day. I began to think about the reasons why some people are more compassionate than others and decided that I should try to perform acts of compassion more often.

As I continued my day of compassion, I donated some money to a few charities online, gave encouraging words to a few friends who were struggling with hard times, and spent a little more time giving attention and love to my pets. I noticed my neighbor’s trash can was still out on the street from trash day, so I brought it up to the driveway for them. When I picked up my son from school I offered one of his friends a ride home so he didn’t have to ride the bus, and when a telemarketer called selling newspaper subscriptions I went ahead and signed up. What’s a few dollars a month if it helps someone make their quotas, or simply just made their day by making a sale and instead of getting yelled at or hung up on? I probably should read more actual news anyways.

It seemed like as the day went on it became easier and easier to act with compassion in everything that I did. I wondered if my motivations were altruistic, motivated simply by improving another person’s welfare ("Altruistic-definition and more," 2013), or egoistic, motivated by my own feelings derived from helping someone ("Egoistic-definition and more," 2013). According to the empathy-altruism hypothesis (Batson, 2009), these two motivations actually work together in influencing helpful actions. Based on this theory, when someone sees another person who needs help they can either take the other person’s perspective, which would lead to feelings of empathy, or they can keep their own perspective and not feel empathy. If the person feels empathy for the person in need then they will experience altruistic feelings and want to help that person. If no empathy is felt, then the person may help in order to reduce their own feelings of discomfort, but they will not help out of altruism. 

I generally believe that I act compassionately with altruistic intent most of the time. However, I do accept that sometimes I may be acting compassionate in order to increase positive feelings about myself. Feeling good is definitely one of the psychological benefits of being compassionate. When you help others, or are just nice to others without any expectation of receiving anything in return, it makes you feel like you are a good person and increases your self-esteem. However, there are some psychological costs related to helping others as well. Sometimes we help others because we truly care about them, like our family and friends, and we are even willing to put their needs above our won. While this is very selfless, it can become a problem if you do not take care of yourself because you are taking care of others. I know that I often feel exhausted and stressed because I constantly put my sons’ needs before my own. Even though it is part of being a good mother, at times I feel like I wear myself out and my health suffers. 

Even though there may be some costs to being compassionate I still feel that it is more beneficial than harmful. I would encourage other people to try being compassionate for a day so they could see how great it feels. I would explain to them that helping others would increase their self-esteem through self-enhancement, which is thinking positively about oneself (Taylor & Brown, 1988). 

I would definitely say that this experiment was a good experience. I believe that in a month from now I will still be benefiting from what I learned today. First of all, I think I will be more cognizant of other people when I am out in the world. Second, I think that I will remember the way that it felt to help people or be kind to people and not get anything in return. Hopefully I can stick to my goal of being more compassionate on a daily basis, not just to my family and friends, but also to people that I do not know. If I can achieve this goal I believe I will have gained much more than a grade from this assignment.

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References

Altruistic-definition and more from the free merriam-webster dictionary. (2013).

Retrieved from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/altruism

Asch, S. E. (1946). Forming impressions of personality.

Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 41, 258-290.

Batson, C.D. (2009). "Two forms of perspective taking: imagining how another feels and imagining how you would feel". In K. D. Markman, W.M.P. Klein and J.A. Suhr (Eds.), Handbook of Imagination and Mental Simulation (pp. 267–279). New York: Psychology Press.

Compassion-definition and more from the free merriam-webster dictionary. (2013).

 Retrieved from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/compassion

Heider, F. (1958). The psychology of interpersonal relations.

New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Egoistic-definition and more from the free merriam-webster dictionary. (2013).

Retrieved from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/egoistic

Taylor, S. E., & Brown, J. D. (1988). Illusion and well-being: A social psychological perspective on mental health. Psychological Bulletin, 103(2), 193-210. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.103.2.193

Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment under uncertainty:

Heuristics and biases. Science, 185, 1124–1130.